sebring light

 

I could not have been ready to go back to Florida after eleven months of absence. Coming back to people I last saw on the other side of the world, to a place where the softness of evening light never fails to break down the hard shell around my heart—I should have expected the tears, I suppose, but I really thought I could maintain my masquerade of strength for seven days.

Maybe I did, in some ways; I only cried in front of a few, though I wanted to cry to them all. Not tears of mourning or discontent, but tears of raw, long-buried pain. The pain of eleven months without the encouragement that can only be found in fellowship with other believers in the Truth, eleven months of being hardened by the unrelieved presence of Darkness. There is an unmistakable Light in Sebring, Florida that I haven’t yet found anywhere else.

I'm so afraid
Of what you have to say
Cause I am quiet now
And silence gives you space

I'll never be, be what you see inside
You say I'm not alone, but I am petrified
You say that you are close, is close the closest star?
You just feel twice as far, you just feel twice as far

And I’ll fall, and I’ll break, and I’ll fake you out…

“Fake You Out” by Twenty One Pilots

untitled

 

It’s odd to think that on February 21, 2014, I stood next to this man at my wedding rehearsal thinking I loved and knew him—when, almost fifty days later, that love looks like a childish fancy compared to how much I love him now. I can hardly imagine what fifty years might bring—but I’m excited to find out. :)

now i just sit in silence

 

There are many untitled drafts lying in my Documents folder, crisp and white like the pages of books that everyone likes to look at but no one cares to read. It seems months since I had a heart-to-heart with my own soul; January and February were some of the loudest months of my existence, though cloaked in dense fog and layers of snow. Then March—married, settled in a new place, and suddenly there is so much silence that I sometimes feel like I’m being screamed at. So I pack a few more things into my daily planner and get busy with trivialities; after all, there is no greater discomfort to a Jonah soul than the quiet that reigns before the storm.

Daily, I pick up my Bible and read. Daily, my eyes skim across words that don’t seem to penetrate the barricade of my stubbornness. Daily, I fight the shame of a hardened heart, caked in the filth of resentment against a God who was supposed to be following my agenda—was supposed to have ended the wilderness wanderings by now, given me some kind of tangible calling.

But then—what calling ever comes to closed ears? It’s always been hard to hear His voice when I’ve stopped up my heart to the silence.

Hands folded, eyes closed, ears opened. There—in the darkness behind my eyelids I can see Him.

He is looking out from my husband’s kind hazel eyes.

Silence.

The blinding light of revelation.

The quiet days of grocery lists and dinner plans, workouts and photography experiments—all permeated with the undeserved joy of being loved and led by a man whom I respect without reservation.

“This is your calling.”